Community Minded

For sometime now, I've been reviewing some notes I have from a lecture I attended this past fall at Willow Creek on community. I been getting my mind and thoughts and heart ready to preach on it. This week I began the process of getting it down to share, and I would like to share one realization I had with you. From the beginning, God has been creating community of Oneness. In fact at the heart of authentic community, is oneness. God instilled in us, because we are created in His image, that need for community, and therefore oneness with those we are in community with. (I hope I am making sense)

OK, now here's the realization. Genesis 2:24 reads, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be untied with his wife, and they will become one flesh." The man leaves his parents and Sib's, his original community, and with his wife re-creates a new family unit, a new community in which they strive for oneness. That verse made so much more sense to me when I saw it in the context of community and oneness. I also realized with a fresh perspective why God hates divorce so much. Because like sin at the fall of mankind, it totally disrupts God's intended design for community, which is oneness with God and each other. Chew on that for a while.

PJ